BF2S Forums future of the "war on terror"

yeah. when Iran was enemy no.1, the US supported Saddam so he'd have the means to keep them in check. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a brutal dictator himself and soon turned on his own people after the Iran-Iraq war, using WMD on some minorities.

Same with Osama and the Taliban. The US supported them in their fight against the Sowjets in Afghanistan. After the russians had left, and the whole country basically was a minefield, the US said "well, the bad guys are gone good luck with your torn-up country, you can go f*** yourselves, good bye". The taliban themselves weren't really angels, they were as brutal mass murderers as the russians back in the days. And they were muslim fanatics with no sense of democracy whatsoever, a fact with didn't seem to bother the US as long as they were fighting the russians...

I am not saying foreign politics is an easy business, but I believe that the US foreign policy has been somewhat short-sighted over the last 25 years or so.

Kinda ironic, isn't it ? The US helped considerably to bring both regimes to power, and 25 years later you have to go in and overthrow them again. Well, at least you are cleaning up after yourselves...

but I am going OT, sorry about that...

so, where do we go from here ? Obviously, the US is trying to install a western-style democracy in the heart of the middle east, in an attempt to promote their image of freedom and democracy. As much as I admire that, I do have considerable doubt wether it will be a success. It might take 10 years or more until that country can safely govern itself. look at the balcans. It's been, what, ten years since the end of the war there, and there are still UN forces present. You cannot erase hundreds of years of ethnic rivalries by saying "well, there you go, the tyran is gone, each of you now got his own nation, now go on and live side by side in peace. remember, you are living in a democracy now".
It is already terribly obvious that the insurgency (sp?) is no longer fighting the US forces, they are fighting for political dominance in a future Iraq government. Who knows who will be in charge of that country after the elections ? A democracy ? freedom ? come one. those tribes have been fighting each other hundreds of years before Saddam came, and it is bound to continue. You cannot force democratic values on people. They need to develop from within them, as a product of rational thinking.
It looks like iran might be the next target of the World Community. Interestingly, the current iranian government was elected in a democratic election ( as democratic as those can be over there ).
Sure, everybody had hoped for a different outcome, a more liberal, approachable head of state. But the people chose differently. Democracy at its best, isn't it ?

terrorism is bound to go on, and so is the war on terror. there are always going to be people that for some reason are angry at their own government or some other government.

As far as motivation is concerned, I have a couple of interesting question / options.

1. middle eastern terrorists simply do what they do because they want the west to stay out of their internal affairs. terrorism will stop on a dime as soon as the west ends its support for israel, withdraws from Iraq and Afghanistan and allows the natives to battle each other for supremacy until they are all wiped out. Personally, I am fine with that as long as the oil is flowing...
2. as xanthpi has argued, the main reason for terrorism and the most important motivation behind it is Islam.
Accordingly, terrorism in the middle east is not a fight for dominance in that specific region, it is merely a preparation for the unification of all muslim nations in the fight against the "infidels", as requested by the Qu'ran. Therefore, even if the west did pull out of the middle east and stayed out of their affairs, we would eventually be faced with a fight against Islam for predominance of this planet. and we would soon be cut off of their oil supplies for the same reasons. what do you make of that theory ?

the conclusions scare me.

"Sure it can End. Give the Palitinians their land back. Stops on a DIME !"

not happening.i belive israel is the main problem but  i also think is the one of the primary causes behind the terrorist attacks is the Amercian Troops in saudi arabia the holy land for muslims. Osama bin laden has said it him self on his tapes. that he wants american troops out of saudi arabia im not sure of numbers but i think there are about 5000 U.S troops stationed in saudi arabia.

Giving back Isreal to the Palitinians would not stop the terroists. also that would be very stupid.

Last edited by Dilbert2468 (2006-01-14 21:55:09)

The way to "win" the war on terror is to win Hearts and Minds.  The problem is that western society has usually been at odds with Islamic society and has very different values...or more specifically ways of enforcing their values.
 
Of course the way to "win" is to marginalize terrorism, rather than "ending" it all together.

Yes, the US has had shortsighted foreign policy over the last...er..."few" decades.

The problem is that the US needs to solve today's problems and try to prevent tomorrow's.  That is no easy task.  Also, the US needs to keep everyone else's opinions happy...even though this is usually not possible.

Just a few thoughts.

Last edited by RAIMIUS (2006-01-14 23:26:52)

"war on terror" such a wierd name aint it? declaring war on the terrorists.

B.Schuss wrote:

the so called "war on terror" has been going on for a while now, obviously with mixed results. Some will argue that it is essentially a success, as attacks on US soil have stopped. Others will argue that the conflict simply has been transferred abroad, and that US citizens ( Marines ) are still dieing.

does the US administration have a plan/strategy where this is going and how it is going to end ? will it ever end ? Can the war on terror be won with conventional military forces ? can it be won at all ?

discuss.

My stance: I don't think the US governmant really has a cohesive strategy for the "war on terror". They go from attack to attack and simply react to what the terrorists do. Moreover, they use military forces to fight a NGO multinational terrorist organization, obviously with limited success. No offense towards the hard-working men and women in Iraq, but last time I checked the Marines were no anti-terrorist unit.

the war on terror cannot be won with military forces. history shows that there are only two ways to deal with terrorists:

1. wipe them all off the face of the earth, together with their families
2. try to find the motivation of the terrorists and see what you can do about that ( I can hear xanthpi homing in on that one )

try to keep this serious, please.

Sorry to home in on this so late.

In order to fight these Islamic terrorists, we need to first understand their ideology. This is something which Western Governments have, almost without exception, been unable to do. Our governments succumbed to political correctness long ago, and hence are not equipped to protect us anymore.

So, if you would like to know what motivates these terrorists, you will have to find out for yourself, as your government will surely not tell you, nor will your traditional sources of news and information.

So:

Who are the victims of each terror attack? Are they 'infidels' or just people who the terrorists do not deem to be sufficiently Islamic?
How do the terrorists justify themselves? Do they quote from the Qur'an? Do they emulate the behaviour of Muhammad?

Following this line of examination is a good start.

Go read the other Islam threads in which I post, for a clue.

Cutting out the rest of what I could write in this post, I think that the key to winning this war is women.

The actions of the terrorists are intrinsically linked to their treatment of women.

Go and think about that.